January, 2012

According to new reports, the UFC will hold its first Fan Expo of 2012 at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas on July 6-7. The expo will be held in conjunction with a major UFC event on July 7th, likely at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. As of now, no fights have been announced for the card; we’ll keep you posted as soon as we know more.

The July 2012 UFC Fan Expo will be the first held since October 2011, when the two-day convention was tied to UFC 136 in Houston. Though we couldn’t make it out to that one, CagePotato has enjoyed a checkered history with these expos, highlighted by a crowd-pleasing punch-machine, a lifetime ban, and a drunken night in Toronto. Should we plan for another meetup in Vegas?

For the latest updates on appearances and events connected to July’s UFC Fan Expo in Las Vegas, keep your eye on ufcfanexpo.com.

(Nothing like a shady promoter profiting off of the blood, sweat and tears of fighters.)

Last year when a video began circulating of a pair of eight year olds competing in a three-round grappling exhibition in a cage during the intermission of a UK-based MMA event, the Internet exploded with outrage from pundits and fans of the sport.

Widespread worldwide media coverage of the match prompted the police in Lancashire, England where the event took place to launch an investigation into whether or not any laws were broken by the promoter. They ruled that the event was not illegal and that the boys were never in any harm and as unsettling as seeing two pre-pubescent youths competing in a cage meant for men was, since they were only basically having a no-gi grappling match no charges were ever laid.

It’s too bad that Alabama authorities aren’t as thorough.

On July 30, 2011 in Priceville, Alabama a local karate school owner by the name of Robert Clairday held an underground event in which two 12-year-olds actually fought inside a ramshackle homemade cage.

One of the kids, Christian Echols, is the son of Ray Echols – Clairday’s business partner in his gym, Fear None MMA, who also helped promote the rogue event that was held at Morgan County Celebration Arena — a dirt floor horse arena.

Well, it seems that, despite missing weight for 25% of his UFC bouts, “Rumble” still has an outside chance of getting back into the sport’s highest promotion. When questioned about the issue following the UFC on Fox 2 press conference, White stated:

[Johnson] needs to go fight somewhere else, get some wins and come in on weight. He needs to prove to me that he can be a professional, show up on weight and do the things that he needs to do. [If] he gets a few fights under his belt and does that, we’ll talk.

Windsor, Ontario MMA fans will likely only have to wait a few more months for their next live fight fix.

CagePotato.com has learned that Bellator Fighting Championships have penciled in an event for April 6 in Windsor, Ontario and that the event is likely to take place at Caesar’s Windsor Casino, just across the Ambassador bridge from Detroit.

The 41-year-old Las Vegas native today weighed in seven pounds over the 155 pound limit for his Maximum Fighting Championship title defense against Brian Cobb tomorrow night in Edmonton, Alberta. As a result of the infraction “Mandingo” will be fined 20 percent of his purse stripped of his title and will be let go from the remainder of his contract with the promotion.

I think [fighting] is about finishing your opponent. It’s about entertainment. It’s not the Olympics; it’s not about coming home and bringing a metal and just getting the win. It’s about pulling more fans in and be entertaining, and I think that fighters that just try to win by points and come away with a win are actually bad for the sport.

Of course, we already knew that. But when a director can’t even be bothered to come up with some spin about “managing expectations” and “making it up in the international market,” you know a film is pretty much fucked. As the jerkoff TMZ cameraman puts it, “all of ‘em can’t be great successes.” Very comforting. Does this mean Gina Carano is going back into hiding for another two years?

Staredown gif via ‘unfilter’ on the UG. The full UFC on FOX 2 press conference video is after the jump, in which Dana White clarifies that Chael Sonnen is not actually the middleweight champion, nor will he be challenging for the light-heavyweight or heavyweight titles after this fight.